During a 6-hour, 26-minute spacewalk Tuesday, Bowersox and Pettit reconfigured critical power cables and continued the external outfitting of the station. They also completed a number of get-ahead tasks for future ISS assembly.

Science experiments this week measured the amount of radiation the astronauts receive and the possible changes in their lung function, before and after spacewalks. Other experiments studied fluids used in mechanical lines such as those in automobile brake systems for possible improvement, and allowed middle school students around the world to command a camera to take pictures of Earth from the station.

Bowersox and Pettit maneuvered the space station robotic arm, Canadarm2, three times this week. The first session, on Sunday, put the robotic arm in position to use its cameras to view the spacewalk and the next two completed the on-orbit checkout of robotic components and gathered data from a sensor.

The altitude of the station was raised to an average 244 statute miles in preparation for the arrival of a new Soyuz spacecraft and its crew. Expedition 7 Commander Yuri Malenchenko and Flight Engineer/NASA ISS Science Officer Ed Lu traveled to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan from their training base in Star City, Russia, to inspect the Soyuz TMA-2 vehicle in which they will be launched on April 26 to begin a six-month mission on the ISS. They also did fit checks today.ce operations can be found on an Internet site administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.